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One more thing: is there any way to keep someone from reading a FB post other than locking it to friends only and not putting that person on your friends list? That’s all I know of. If so, then she wasn’t really doing this publicly – she was ranting to her friends, and that is something teens do, or at least should be able to do.

That’s what I figured. My comment was rather with regards to the future of their relationship cause “punishing” a child like that just makes no sense whatsoever if you’re hoping to get anything positive out of it. This is a man who consciously decided he’d destroy any sense of safety and trust between him and his daughter (or at least whatever might have been left after whatever form of abuse he might have shown earlier). I just can’t wrap my head around this.

Jennifer Kesler:
One more thing: is there any way to keep someone from reading a FB post other than locking it to friends only and not putting that person on your friends list? That’s all I know of. If so, then she wasn’t really doing this publicly – she was ranting to her friends, and that is something teens do, or at least should be able to do.

In the video he explicitly said that she was posting this for friends only and the parents were blocked from seeing the post. He was only able to read it cause he was fixing some stuff on her laptop and probably thought it would be fun to check her facebook account with her login data. I feel it’s like he read her diary or private letters – and HE’s talking about “disrespect”!

Sabrina: This is a man who consciously decided he’d destroy any sense of safety and trust between him and his daughter (or at least whatever might have been left after whatever form of abuse he might have shown earlier). I just can’t wrap my head around this.

I know you weren’t asking, but for the benefit of the audience at home: I don’t think he ever wanted her to HAVE any sense of safety and trust. Some people feel absolutely entitled to violate others’ boundaries anytime and in any way they like. The only reason they sometimes don’t is because they think they’ll be caught and disapproved of. In this case, he rightly calculated that society would approve. It’s entirely possible he was less affronted by this than he was thrilled to have an excuse to violate his daughter’s boundaries.

And the violation of boundaries is DESIGNED to make you feel you have no privacy, you can’t escape, you exist only as an extension of his reality. Because that’s certainly how HE sees it, and it would suit him best if you saw it the same way.

Sabrina: He was only able to read it cause he was fixing some stuff on her laptop and probably thought it would be fun to check her facebook account with her login data.

Riiiiight. He was just fixing the laptop and “happened” to open up Facebook, in the same way that video game just “happened” to fall into the shoplifter’s pocket, that spray can just “happened” to paint graffiti on the wall in front of the vandal, or that phone just “happened” to jump into an abusive boyfriend’s hand and display all its text messages.

The fact that the girl is friends with both her parents on Facebook, but her dad knew to check and see what she was blocking from him, means that trust and security were destroyed in that household long ago.

Thank God the police and CPS came to look into things…I SHOULD NOT HAVE READ THE COMMENTS! “The girl probably called the cops out of spite”? Not to mention the top comment about how “It isn’t apparent the father threatened her existence. Oh wait, I guess he did ‘cuz he killed her INTERNET SOCIAL LIFE HURR DURR!” “I can’t think of any other way to curb this childish behavior”? YOU CAN’T THINK OF SOMETHING BETTER TO DO BESIDES FUCKING SHOOT SOMETHING!? I guess ‘cuz he didn’t murder her yet, it’s okay.

God these people disgust me. This reminds me of when I was a kid (aged 7 to 10) and my mom thought if I went to therapy I’d eventually “just get over” my depression. She’d grill me after every meeting with me therapist and if I mentioned anything about the stuff she does, she’d yell at me for “making her look bad”.

There is a sense of satisfaction in destroying something that belongs to a person who’s angered you. It gives you a feeling of power. Of being in control.

But we can’t. And we certainly shouldn’t use such a violent-certainly not in such a public fashion-means to get our point across.

I have to question; of all the people ‘cheering’ this man for his actions, how many of them would actually DO IT themselves? If they found out that their teen was venting online to their friends? How many of them would resort to such methods? What would they hope to accomplish? Are those defending this man’s actions confessing that they themselves feel inept as parents and want a ‘quick-fix’ to whatever issues there are? Is that REALLY what we, as a society, need? Name the last time a ‘quick-fix’ of this nature ever left any positive, lasting results.

‘Quick-fixes’ are for parents too chicken, too lazy and too self-centered to put any effort into their parenting skills and actually THINK of alternate methods that would yield far greater, more positive results.

BTW; on the Mandy Ray article; someone posted a link to the daughters response in the comments, but I can’t access it. Could someone post it here, please?

Oh wait, I guess he did ‘cuz he killed her INTERNET SOCIAL LIFE HURR DURR!

Which he could have done by taking the computer away, if he wanted to deprive her of the means she’d used to misbehave/”misbehave” in that way. If he’d wanted to make it permanent, he could have given it away to someone or donated it to charity.

Instead he chose the most violent means available to make his point.

And if that’s not about threatening her, then what the fuck is it about?

Weeeell, you’ll notice this is all entirely Jordan’s side of the story. There’s no mention in any article I found on Bing that the police or CPS confirm they visited him. This is just crap he reported on Facebook, and it sounds to me like he’s desperate to get famous. He also claims he had to have a friend run reporters out of his yard, and I am doubting that (a) reporters came to his home and (b) he would run them off if they did and (c) he has a friend. It all sounds like pathetic, desperate bullshitting to me.

Red: ‘Quick-fixes’ are for parents too chicken, too lazy and too self-centered to put any effort into their parenting skills and actually THINK of alternate methods that would yield far greater, more positive results.

And hearing there’s an ex-wife in the picture, and the girl has only been with him for a few months, makes me hopeful that even if this video isn’t “legally” child abuse, the mother can use it in a custody hearing.

I have to wonder; what are we REALLY teaching our kids when we pull cr@p like this? Are we hoping to ‘scare ’em strait’ when we destroy their belongings? (yes, THEIR belongings. Despite what people say about how parents provide stuff, ultimately, it is their CHILD’S PROPERTY) Do we WANT them to respect or fear us? Because there IS a difference. This man’s actions are about instilling a measure of fear in his child, NOT about teaching the importance of respect for others. This doesn’t address the issue.

It’s so much easier to do things like this than actually work on fixing whatever problem resulted in her vent.

And honestly, I find it somewhat funny that all the MOST whining done by those who support this guys actions is done by ADULTS complaining how ‘easy’ kids today have it, etc. and how basically they ‘have no right to whine’ about such things. Puh-LEEZE. That has been an adult complaint since time immortal. I’m sure THEIR parents whined about the same thing when they were young, just as adults did about my generation, and my mothers generation and my grandmother’s generation. It is an age-old complaint. Get. Over. It.

Who’s the BIGGER whiner in all this? The teenager who was venting about the same-old same-old, or the adult who lashed out in an immature fashion by destroying something that did NOT BELONG TO HIM?

Red:
There is a sense of satisfaction in destroying something that belongs to a person who’s angered you. It gives you a feeling of power. Of being in control.

But we can’t. And we certainly shouldn’t use such a violent-certainly not in such a public fashion-means to get our point across.

I have to question; of all the people ‘cheering’ this man for his actions, how many of them would actually DO IT themselves? If they found out that their teen was venting online to their friends? How many of them would resort to such methods? What would they hope to accomplish?

I suspect part of the problem is that yes, the idea is satisfying on a visceral level — who hasn’t taken a brief moment to think about doing something disproportionate and just plain mean to someone who’s making their life difficult, even if they’d never do it? — and they aren’t thinking it through to the natural conclusion because people are notorious for one-step thinking when they hear a story. It’s the same reason people will cheer for someone who quits their job by telling off their jerkass boss in the most public and insulting way possible but would never do it themselves because after that pleasant moment when they consider the impulse, the rational voice in their head thinks it through and realize it would utterly screw their life: they’d be unemployed and finding another would be difficult to impossible after the new place heard about the childish stunt at the last one.

The step they’re failing to take here is that they aren’t realizing that this is a man who never got past that moment of rage. That a grown adult who is responsible for the welfare of a child cannot distinguish the fleeting moment of “I swear I’m just going to throw this computer out the window” and actually destroying the computer with a gun and filming it. I’d say that the destruction of property and invasion of privacy aren’t even the most troubling aspects here (both are clearly horrible, but comparatively speaking). The most frightening part is that this is someone who doesn’t have second rational thoughts, who’s incapable of not acting from an entirely emotional place, who in acting on what should be a passing moment of anger chooses a violent manner to do it, who then remains PROUD of his actions, and is supposed to be raising and protecting a child. That isn’t the description of someone I would trust to water my plants, let alone be a parent.

I was looking the vid comments amid all the cheers ( and thankfully jeers), someone thought to point out that this guy opened his daughter up to hate, trools, etc.

That, right there, seems to be something the father didn’t take into serious consideration when he decided to do this; by making such a thing so public, he’s opened his daughter up to a flood of harassment from people who feel she’s a ‘bitch’ and ‘deserved it’.

Regardless of whether you think she ‘deserved’ what her father did, NO ONE-certainlt not a teenager-deserves such public ridicule that could easily turn into serious harassment and even threats against her person over something so petty as a facebook rant. One of the MILLIONS that get posted on FB EVERY DAY and wasn’t much different from those others.

She is FIFTEEN YEARS-OLD. And her father effectively put a target on her back with his irresponsible, over-reactionary response to all and any on the web who would deem it ‘acceptable’ to lash out at her in some form over such a petty thing. I can’t even BEGIN to imagine the humiliation she will very likely endure, if she hasn’t already, and at so young an age.

MaggieCat: The step they’re failing to take here is that they aren’t realizing that this is a man who never got past that moment of rage. That a grown adult who is responsible for the welfare of a child cannot distinguish the fleeting moment of “I swear I’m just going to throw this computer out the window” and actually destroying the computer with a gun and filming it.

This is what I was trying to say earlier, but much better put. That he felt like shooting her computer when he read this rant is understandable. That he took the time to plan the shooting, the filming and everything else, and at no point cooled down and thought, “Maybe this isn’t quite the ticket” is what’s so alarming.